The best camera is always the one you have with you. That’s why a smartphone’s camera is one of its most important features. After all, phone makers have been competing for the title of “best camera phone” for decades. Interestingly, today’s top Chinese phones have surprisingly good cameras. hardwareThat means larger sensors that promise to improve the quality of photos taken with your phone. Unfortunately, most of them are not available for purchase in the US.
But to find out which smartphone deserves the crown and how these larger sensors perform, I ran a camera showdown between the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, and the Honor Magic 6 Pro. As a general comparison, I also included the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus. I took countless photos with these smartphones. Below are just a few examples, with a brief explanation of the different hardware and software approaches that manufacturers have taken and why.
Each photo set is ranked with my favorite first, but you might not agree. All photos were taken on the automatic settings of each phone, since that’s what most people use. To be honest, in most cases there isn’t much difference. For comparison, I’ve included photos from the Samsung Galaxy S24+ at the end.
Hardware Specifications
Each phone comes equipped with a huge camera system packed with cutting edge camera technology. Here is a quick rundown of the key camera specs.
- Xiaomi 14 Ultra: 50MP main camera, 50MP ultra-wide angle, 50MP telephoto, 50MP periscope telephoto
- OPPO FIND X7 ULTRA: 50MP main camera, 50MP ultra-wide angle, 50MP periscope telephoto, 50MP periscope telephoto
- HonorMagic 6 Pro: 50MP main camera, 50MP ultra-wide angle, 180MP periscope telephoto
We’re not going to pit the Galaxy S24 Plus against these three – we’ve only included it for comparison – but here are its specs:
- Samsung Galaxy S24+: 50MP main camera, 10MP telephoto camera, 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera
Main camera
The main camera is the one you’ll use most often. All three phones have excellent, versatile main cameras that can take great photos in a variety of situations and scenarios. Just point and shoot and you’ll get satisfying results most of the time. However, there are significant differences in their technical capabilities.
All of these phones have large sensors: Xiaomi and Oppo have Sony LYT-900 1-inch sensors, while Honor has a smaller H9000 OmniVision 1/1.28-inch sensor. The larger the sensor, the more light it can capture quickly, resulting in sharper low-light photos and less motion blur.
The aperture is the opening in a lens that lets in light, acting like the pupil of your eye. Both the Xiaomi 14 Ultra (f/1.63 to f/4.0) and the Honor Magic 6 Pro (f/1.4 to f/2.0) have variable apertures. The f-number indicates the size of the aperture, with a lower number indicating a larger aperture that lets in more light. The Oppo Find X7 Ultra (f/1.8) has the same fixed aperture as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus (f/1.8).
A potential problem with larger sensors and larger apertures is that they can result in a shallow depth of field. The camera will have a hard time keeping everything in focus. They’re great for taking portrait photos and wanting a bokeh effect, but close-ups can leave the edges blurry, and landscape photos can leave the foreground or background out of focus. A variable aperture can help reduce this issue, giving you a wider depth of field and keeping everything in focus for group or landscape photos. (Many of these camera terms are explained in our camera buying guide.)
